Crowley's Baby
by Min Daae
Summary: Aziraphale finds an unexpected visitor in Crowley's bathtub. Crowley seems rather attached. Chapter Three up!
1. Welcome Baby

It was a relatively quiet morning in the flat, the windows half open, relative silence pervading the corners of the open and rather cluttered room.

"_Crowley!_"

Well, mostly.

Crowley looked up from a potted plant. "Do I detect a hint of perturbation?"

Aziraphale stood in the doorway, damp, mussed, and wrapped in a towel, tortoiseshell glasses slightly fogged. "You do." His voice was slightly clipped. "I'm trying to take a bath."

Crowley blinked. "…thank you for telling me."

"I can't."

Crowley sat up, carefully. "I'm sorry I don't believe in the cleaning power of Clorox, but-"

"No, that's just fine, I've seen worse. But-"

"You've seen _worse_? Where have you _been_? That's just obscene-"

"A.J. Crowley, what is that _thing _in your _bathtub?_"

The demon winced. "Oh. Right. That."

"Yes," hissed Aziraphale. "_That._"

Crowley straightened, giving the potted plant a last stern look. "I'm not done talking to you," he warned, then turned to fully face the irate angel. "I hope you didn't drain the tub."

Aziraphale adjusted his towel. "So you _knew_ about this and didn't _mention_ it?"

"I forgot."

"You forgot? How can you-" Aziraphale stopped and decided that he didn't want to know.

"So did you?" Crowley asked, a little worried. "Drain it, I mean."

"I tried," Aziraphale said, grimacing. "It _grabbed _me." He shuddered. Crowley brightened.

"Really? That's…" The look the angel gave him was venomous. Crowley shut his mouth, looking sheepish. "…sorry."

"It has _tentacles_."

Crowley said nothing, though it looked as though it were taking effort not to.

"_Well?_"

"His name's Adolf."

"Adolf as in _Hitler?_"

"It's kind of a joke," Crowley said defensively.

Aziraphale hiked up the slipping towel. "And it has a _name?_"

The demon did have the grace to look sheepish.

"Where did it _come _from, anyway?"

"I'm not…sure."

Aziraphale stared at him. "You mean to tell me that there's a tentacle monster living in your bathtub and you don't know how it _got _there?"

"It just sort of…appeared."

"…and you haven't _done _anything about it? What do you think it is, some kind of pet?"

There was a highly suspicious silence. Aziraphale stared at Crowley in disbelief.

"You're losing your towel," Crowley pointed out sullenly.

Aziraphale hiked it up again, irritably, and opened his mouth, but was interrupted by a quiet burbling noise from the bathroom. Both of them turned to look at it.

"What was _that?_"

Crowley looked slightly concerned. "I'm not sure." He started toward the bathroom. Aziraphale stared at his back and then followed him. "Are you even thinking about this?" Crowley didn't answer. Aziraphale caught up to him standing next to the full bathtub and looking down at the water, which was swirling in a psychedelic, kaleidoscopic array of color. Aziraphale would have felt dizzy, had he been capable.

"What is _that?_"

"The color of insanity," Crowley said, seriously. Silence followed.

"You did not just-"

"Sorry," the demon apologized. "I don't know. He's never done that before."

"Stop that. Stop referring to it as a he. You'll get attached to it."

"I told you, his name is Adolf," Crowley said, "And,"

Again, the thing in the tub made a curious burbling noise and raised four tentacles out of the water, waving them in a manner that was vaguely plaintive.

"What does it _want?_" Aziraphale asked peevishly, readjusting his towel.

"I think he's hungry. What do tentacle monsters eat?"

Aziraphale threw up his hands. "Oh. Marvelous. Now you're feeding it?"

"I'm not going to just let him _starve._ What do they eat?"

"I don't know, souls of the damned," snarked Aziraphale. Crowley shot him a look.

"We could try mice," Crowley said thoughtfully.

"What, do you just have some mice lurking around in your freezer?"

"I was going to do something with them eventually." There was a bit of a silence. "…kidding, Aziraphale. I'll be right back."

"Try to be quick," Aziraphale said, irritably, wrapping the towel more securely and tucking in the end. "I don't think it likes me very much."

As though to prove his point, the thing in the tub burbled again. Aziraphale could almost hear it promising watery vengeance even as it drew the tentacles back underwater, the colors-of-insanity fading but the water still curiously opaque. Crowley returned a moment later holding a squirming little mouse by the tail. "Little bugger bit me," He commented.

"Poor you." Aziraphale took a step back. "Has it occurred to you that your bathtub might be an inter-dimensional portal?"

"…no."

"You might think about the possibility."

Crowley eyed his friend, briefly. "I'll consider it." He dropped the mouse in the tub, without further ado. "Let's see how this works." Alarmingly, it sank.

"Interesting," the demon mused.

"Mm," said the angel noncommittally.

A few moments later came another little burble, sounding vaguely pleased this time, and then the mouse bobbed to the surface, whole and very much dead.

"Will you look at that," said Crowley. "It _did _work."

"It didn't eat it," Aziraphale said, wrinkling his nose.

"Seems to be happy about it, though." Crowley paused, then looked over the edge of the tub. "That right, Adolf?"

The tentacles came out of the water again, waved around a bit, hooked over the side of the tub, and tightened. With an odd squelching noise, something emerged from the water, clinging to the side of the tub by its many tentacles.

It looked like an octopus. Sort of. Except that it was unfolding tiny, membranous wings from its bulbous body. The eyes glowed an eerie red. The skin pulsed slightly in a vaguely nauseating manner and was colored an oddly sickly green. The pair stared at it.

It mewed, then burbled, blowing multicolored bubbles over the bathroom. One hit Aziraphale's nose and popped. It smelled vaguely mousy.

"…h'lo, Adolf," Crowley said, sounding a little surprised. The tentacle monster mewed again, and reached out one tentacle in Crowley's direction and it blorped, curiously. Aziraphale decided it was time to interfere. He seized the demon's arm and dragged him forcibly back out of the bathroom. And _shut the door. _

"What are you doing?" Crowley complained.

"Crowley. There is. A tentacle monster. _In your bathtub._ It has glowing red eyes and pea soup colored skin."

"…and?"

"_Do you not see anything wrong with this?_"

"Not really." Crowley frowned. "Listen, he's burbling again."

"It's not a he. It's not even _Earthly. _It's a tentacle monster!"

Crowley frowned. "Aziraphale, it's _my _bathtub."

The door creaked. Both of them looked back. Adolf the tentacle monster mewed again, still dangling from the doorknob by his tentacles, little wings spread and flapping ineffectually.

"Oh _no._"

"And look how smart he is! He's already figured out the doorknob."

"Crowley, you cannot keep a tentacle monster in the bathtub of your flat."

"Why not?"

Aziraphale stared. "Because you _can't!_"

"What've you got against Adolf, anyway?" Crowley wanted to know. Aziraphale gaped more.

"…Crowley. A tentacle monster. That makes colors-of-insanity in your bathtub and apparently devours the souls of mice only to burp multicolored bubbles."

"I think he's cute."

They both turned to look at the dangling, unearthly horror, who removed one tentacle and waved it with a plaintive burble. The eyes glowed crimson. It pulsed once or twice, skin glistening with suspicious moisture. Crowley frowned.

"Adolf, you'll dry out. Get back in the tub."

It dropped to the floor and crawled across the floor, leaving a trail of noisome slime, to plop messily back into the bathtub. Aziraphale…just…stared.

"I think he wants some more mice," Crowley declared, authoritatively, and started off for the kitchen. Aziraphale looked at the stinking slime on the bathroom floor, at the glowing red eyes peering at him balefully over the edge of the tub, and could only find one word.

"…_cute_?"


	2. A Picky Eater

Over the next few weeks, Adolf grew prodigiously, after about a month already the size of a teenaged Great Dane. Oddly enough, however, he still fit in the bathtub. Aziraphale thought that confirmed his theory about said tub being an interdimensional portal; Crowley said he was just compactable. Over the days, though, they settled into a comfortable routine, each with their own role to play. Crowley took the job of feeding it. Aziraphale took the job of watching it suspiciously. Adolf got the job, by default, of making their flat smell like a Japanese fish market.

Adolf squelched happily around the kitchen, banging cupboard doors open and closed. He never seemed to dry out, either, and would not put up with being left in the bathroom if he thought something interesting was or might be going on. "Aren't you going to do something about the smell?" Aziraphale demanded to know as they both sat at the table, sipping coffee just for the hell of it.

The look Crowley gave him was reproachful at best. "He can't help it."

"I tried to eat some Provolone yesterday. It tasted like _fish. _Cheese, Crowley. Fish."

"I didn't notice any problem," the demon objected.

"That's because you have the taste buds of a single-celled aquatic creature. Trust me, it is getting simply-"

He was, however, cut off by a wet sensation on his calf. Looking down, Adolf seemed to be hugging his leg with two long, nauseously colored tentacles. He mewed and purred, rubbing its bulbous cephalopod head against his khakis, leaving a suspicious stain. "—_and _he keeps ruining my pants!"

Crowley was grinning, though. "_Awww._"

"Shut up. Would you get him off?"

"He likes you."

"He's a tentacle monster. Named after an infamous dictator. I'm so glad he likes me." Aziraphale scowled down at his leg. "Can't you just keep him in the bathroom?"

"I told you, he doesn't stay in. He kept wrecking my locks. And he cries, too." Aziraphale twitched and made a brief effort to pry the tentacles off his leg. Adolf wrapped a few more around his ankle in response, purred again, then made a loud gagging noise and spewed noisome slime on his shoes.

"…ew," said Crowley, mildly. Adolf burbled apologetically and splotched over to the bathroom, where he fell messily into the tub and vanished, eyes poking above the water in a slightly embarrassed way.

Aziraphale could only sigh in an exasperated manner and hope that the cleaners wouldn't ask too many questions.

Of course, the only problems weren't ones of unpleasant smells and dirty clothing. Aside from the distressing fact that Adolf the tentacle monster seemed to have taken a liking to the angel, there were the cultists that kept trying to sneak into their flat in increasingly inventive ways – one even attempted a disguise as one of Crowley's potted plants. There was the fact that strange lights emanated from the bathroom at night. And the way the neighbor's cats kept disappearing.

And there was the door-to-door salesman who went mad, which was unfortunate. Crowley's excuse was that he'd been busy at the time and it wasn't _his _fault Adolf went and opened the door on his own. Aziraphale accused him of doing it on purpose. Either way, the angel had come home from grocery shopping to find a salesman on their mat gibbering about non-Euclidean geometry and eldritch horrors, Adolf sitting on his feet with an expression that was almost smug – if a tentacle monster could be smug.

However, the last straw, for Aziraphale, came on a sunny Tuesday morning when, as he was sipping his coffee, Adolf heaved his way onto his lap, rubbed his bulbous head against his shirt, and blorped in the way that indicated their tentacle monster had the munchies.

"Crowley, your pet wants food."

"You can feed him just as easily as I can," Crowley said absently from behind his tabloid. "Oh, look. 'Inside the Queen's Closet.' Thrilling."

"_AJ Crowley._"

"You know where the mice are. In the baggie in the freezer. Put on some Queen while you're up, won't you?"

Aziraphale sighed, shoved Adolf off his lap, and went over to the freezer, muttering mutinously to himself. Opening the bag, he tugged one of the frozen mice out of the resealable bag and tossed it at Adolf.

Who examined it critically, poked at it with his tentacles, and promptly turned up his beak at it.

"Oh, what _now?_" The angel grumbled, and picked up the mouse by the tail, examining it. "Anthony, he won't eat his mouse."

"He's been fussy lately," Crowley said, looking up briefly. "Just make it flop around a little. I think he likes to pretend they're alive."

"…that's disgusting." Aziraphale dropped the mouse, quickly. Adolf poked it with a tentacle, mewed, and the dead mouse abruptly vanished. Aziraphale stared at Adolf, who stared back, belligerently, little red eyes glowing with annoyed dissatisfaction.

"_Crowley._"

"What now?" The demon asked, peevishly.

"He made the mouse vanish. I don't think he's going to eat it."

Adolf, for his part, blorped impatiently and slapped his tentacles on the floor in a demanding 'feed me' gesture.

"—what?"

"He didn't want to eat the mouse. _Now _what are we going to do? I _told _you the cats were going missing on our floor-"

"He's a growing boy," Crowley protested defensively. "We knew he was going to need something a little bigger-"

"Growing _tentacle monster _and he's eating _cats._ You _still _don't see a problem with this? And what about that poor salesman?" Crowley muttered something uncharitable that Aziraphale chose not to hear. "What are we supposed to feed him now, _kittens?_"

"Could try fish."

"He _is _a fish."

"He's a cephalopod. There's a difference." Crowley seemed to be sulking, just a bit, and his forked tongue slithered out in that vaguely nervous motion he had sometimes. "We'll just have to try a few things, that's all!"

"Why don't we just give him to the cultists?"

"They're not going to take care of him!" Crowley scowled. "I'm not going to just _sell _him, Aziraphale. He turned up in _my _bathtub. And if you're going to be that way, you can just – deal with it!" He set the tabloid down, unfolded. "I'm going to go grocery shopping and see if I can't find something he'll eat. Adolf," and here he held up an admonishing finger, "_Behave._" And seizing a pair of sunglasses and Aziraphale's Haydn CD and took off out the door.

"You'd better bring that back!" The angel yelled after him, "I don't want _any _more Queen CDs around here!" Adolf came and sat helpfully on his foot, looking up balefully.

"Don't look at _me,_" Aziraphale snapped. "This wasn't my idea. And you're making my foot go to sleep."

Adolf burbled agreeably and waved his tentacles in a vaguely pleased manner, showing no intention of moving.

Aziraphale wondered, privately, if it would be uncharitable to kick the demon when he got back. "Is there anything you can do about that smell?" He asked Adolf, irritably. "I don't _like _fish."

He could have sworn the look he received was indignant.


	3. Growing Up Baby

The attempt to find something that Adolf would eat was not going well.

He wouldn't take dog food, raw meat, cooked meat, or even calamari, which Crowley had tried on a gamble and been whacked over the head with for his trouble. "What were you _thinking?"_ Aziraphale wanted to know as he pulled bits of tentacle out of his hair. "Those are his _kin._"

"I thought maybe if they were familiar-"

"You thought wrong, obviously! I'm going to smell like fish for days…"

Tensions were higher in the flat than they had ever been, with arguments breaking out every couple days. "He's just a baby," Crowley would yell, clutching his new copy of Cephalopods and You to his chest, and Aziraphale would gape at him fishlike as they both stared at the now Rottweiler sized tentacle monster on their floor. Adolf blorped cheerfully and oozed onto their couch, which sagged perilously.

Turning baleful red eyes on the pair of them, he flapped tiny wings once and made another hungry blorping noise.

The last straw really came when Crowley took a trip to the pet store to ask for help, and Aziraphale found himself stuck for an hour when Adolf decided that his feet looked like a comfortable place to sit, wrapped his tentacles around the angel's ankles, and began leaking copious amounts of brackish water on his shoes.

When the demon stepped inside, carrying a grocery bag, Aziraphale gave him the most malevolent glare he could muster.

"What happened to you?"

"Would you get your aqueous beast off my feet, please?"

There was no real need to ask, though. On seeing Crowley, Adolf emitted a curious noise and schlopped across the floor to sit on Crowley's feet instead, who seemed not at all disturbed. "So," he announced, "The pet store wasn't very helpful. But the grocery gave me some clams, so maybe he'll eat some of those…"

"We already tried seafood," Aziraphale commented sourly. Crowley gave him a look that Aziraphale judiciously ignored. "Just get a few extra damned souls, I'm sure your people can spare a few, we don't want any more cats disappearing…"

Adolf made an odd purring noise, retched, and then made a sound like coughing. And spat out something distinctly recognizable.

"Crowley, you didn't let him progress to dogs," Aziraphale groaned, and Adolf fidgeted on Crowley's feet, who was looking shocked.

"No! No, bad Adolf, you don't…"

They both quieted, suddenly, as Adolf's skin began to glisten and then to glow, swirling with menacing, otherworldly colors, glaring at the demon with malevolent red eyes for a moment before the large cephalopod flapped his ineffective wings and oozed off the table with an ominous creaking. Without further ado, he flopped across the floor and plopped into his bathtub with a violent splash, sinking out of sight. And clearly sulking.

"Now what," Aziraphale started to say, but was interrupted by an ominous burbling noise. The pair ran to the bathroom, but to their horror, the bathtub was full of noxious smelling water, and empty of tentacle monsters.

**

They bickered loudly over who had made him leave, Crowley insister Aziraphale had done it, Aziraphale insisting he had no idea where Crowley's adolescent eldritch horror had gone and that _no, _they were _not _going to try any summoning spells when the flat lurched, settled, and creaked.

Then a quiet dripping emanated from the bathroom.

Crowley reacted first, leaping to the doorway. "Adolf?"

A tentacle as big around as Aziraphale's leg whipped out and flung an ancient used book at the angel's head, before withdrawing into the suddenly dark bathroom. A moment later, red eyes the size of salad plates peered through the crack, glowing menacingly, sullenly.

"I think he grew," Crowley suggested, tentatively, after a few moments of silence.

"You're not joking."

"Adolf?" The demon inquired tentatively. There was an ominous burble from behind the door, but no sound otherwise. "I'm…sorry for yelling at you – we both are, we didn't mean to…"

The sound was not recognizable at first, but then Aziraphale started at the low purr emanating like a car engine from their bathroom. And shaking the entire room. More tentacles slipped out through the door and began the laborious task of hauling himself through the small doorway, wedging himself back into the kitchen.

'Grown' was an understatement. His bulbous head alone was the size of a small pony. The whole of him, including tentacles, shouldn't have fit in the flat, but the walls seemed to bend away from him in disconcerting ways. And his eyes had fulfilled their promise and were no glowing with unholy, eldritch, daemon light.

"I think he found something to eat," Aziraphale said in a hushed voice. Adolf burped, as if in agreement, and the angel tried not to think too much about what that 'something' might be.

And with a small mewling sound, he flopped gracelessly over onto Aziraphale's feet. He settled securely on the angel's dry bunny slippers, bumped his cephalopodian head against Aziraphale's torso, and started to purr.

Crowley looked at Aziraphale, whose feet were quickly losing all feeling. Aziraphale looked at Crowley, who was damp from head to toe.

Neither spoke a single word of protest.


	4. Oh Noes, Cultists!

When Aziraphale dropped by the next morning, after Adolf allowed him to go back to his bookshop, he was lugging the heavy black tome that had been lobbed at him yesterday and wearing his tortoiseshell glasses.

He found Crowley on the sitting room couch, poring over a paper, with Adolf somehow wedged in beside him.

Whatever he was, the tentacle monster managed things the angle was sure Euclid would have abhorred.

By being very careful, he crept close enough to read the headline before Crowley realized he was there. "Another church defiled, twelve dead, police baffled?"

Crowley jumped. "Calm down! It doesn't-"

"Have anything to do with Adolf's disappearance and subsequent _growth?_"

Crowley looked sullen. "They were cultists anyway, neither yours nor mine want them, and he hasn't complained about being hungry _once _today. I don't think he really realizes – he's just a baby! They probably _summoned _him and he couldn't help it!"

They both looked at Adolf, who looked the slightest bit ashamed of himself.

"And he brought you a book," Crowley pointed out. It was Aziraphale's turn to look sheepish.

"One I don't have, either."

"Look," Crowley said, firmly. "I know you got off on the wrong foot. ---tentacle. Whatever. But just – spend some quality time together and I know..."

"Crowley," the angel said, forcing his voice to be firm and deliberately not looking at Adolf, "_look _at this," and he dropped the heavy book in Crowley's lap. They both stared at the unmarked, strangely spotted cover. Crowley opened it, hesitantly.

"It is _not._"

"It _is,_" Aziraphale said, firmly, "I tried to read it."

"It's not a real _book._"

Aziraphale pointed accusingly at Adolf. "Tell that to him!" They both looked at the cephalopod, who burbled curiously, and unless Aziraphale was imagining things, attempting to look innocent. This was proving rather difficult when all he had to communicate innocence were large, glowing red eyes.

"The _Necronomicon _by _Abdul Alhazred?_" Crowley asked him, incredulously.

"Which means that there are cultists who are actually trying to _summon dread creatures from another dimension, _Crowley, this is serious!"

"Yes, but…" Crowley trailed off, the light of sudden inspiration dawning in his eyes.

"I don't like that expression," said Aziraphale warily, but Crowley was positively beaming.

"Let Adolf take care of it! I mean – it eliminates the cultist problem – he got twelve in one evening! – and it takes care of having to feed him because apparently lost souls are just as edible as regular ones, and-"

"It's morally reprehensible!"

"Morally reprehensible? Please. They're _cultists. _Lower life form."

Aziraphale gave him a scathing look. "And besides. It seems apparent to me that Adolf is exactly one of those dread creatures they are trying to _summon._ Perhaps that's how he's here in the first place! And you still don't see anything wrong with this?"

Crowley looked stubborn. "All right. But he's relatively harmless. To important people. I mean, so far his only human casualties are twelve cultists."

"And a door-to-door salesman."

"…yes, exactly."

Aziraphale fought with that for a few moments, then seemed to decide that salesmen fell outside his jurisdiction. "Nonetheless-"

"And he's cute," Crowley added stubbornly, and unfortunately, Aziraphale didn't have the heart, looking at Adolf, to argue with that one.

Adolf burped amiably and turned a pleased sort of blue-green color. Aziraphale sat down. "You realize that he shouldn't fit on that couch?"

"I know," said Crowley, pleasantly, "I'm trying not to worry about it." There was amiable silence for a bit, during which Aziraphale flipped absently through the writings of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, Crowley flipped through the newspaper, and Adolf amused himself by blowing multicolored bubbles that stuck to the ceiling for five minutes before popping with a vague smell of cologne. Until about a half an hour later, when Adolf stiffened, turned bright red, and with a solid blorping sound squeezed back into the bathroom.

Crowley and Aziraphale looked at each other. "Another one?"

The demon shrugged. "Must be another time zone," and went back to reading his paper."

**

Adolf's outings were rather irregular. Some days he was hardly in at all, and some days he sat around – if tentacle monsters could be said to sit – blowing bubbles or else managing somehow to sit on Aziraphale's feet even if he was now approximately the size of a Clydesdale and growing steadily. Crowley began to suggest taking him for walks because his tentacles looked to be getting cramped, to which Aziraphale would simply _stare _in bewildered awe before asking where Crowley thought they would affix a leash to.

The idea didn't come up again.

Adolf was gone more and more often, though, as the days went on – the angel postulated that the reappearance of their so called deity at their summoning rites was only encouraging cultists, but the demon seemed unimpressed – and the neighbors were beginning to complain of strange and persistent nightmares of a dread city beneath the waves, or else that their adjacent homes no longer seemed to be following the rules of Euclidean geometry. And while Crowley maintained adamantly that Adolf could hide in the bathtub if the police dropped by, he could come up with no explanation for a tub full of water the color of insanity and the lingering fishy smell.

It was becoming clear that Adolf was a growing problem.


End file.
